Sword & Shield Saturday

Saturday we hosted a Society for Creative Anachronism demonstration on Troy's campus, and had about 50+ students show up. I originally met the SCA group doing research for a book, and they really wanted to come to campus, in large part because they are hoping to reinvigorate an SCA chapter that was at Troy University, but had disappeared years earlier.

I thought I might find a venue to invite them, probably in conjunction with something having to do with medieval literature, but then something odd happened. The International Student Cultural Organization (of which I'm the faculty advisor) heard about the SCA Pillage on the Plains weekend, and wanted to sponsor something like that for international students. At first, I tried to talk them out of it -- I didn't really get the connection -- but they said that they really wanted to do something different than the usual bowling/dances/trips. This sure seemed different, so we set it up.

The only disappointment about the event was that we were hoping for more of our new international students, but all the int'l students who showed up have been here for a while. Except for that, the event was well-attended, and after four hours we still had a crowd. At one point, I even had to bully some students away from the manuscript illumination demo to allow the scribe a chance to eat lunch! We even had a number of kids come, and they had a great time. Unfortunately, my camera started malfunctioning part-way through the event, so my images are limited, but here are a few:

Explaining to students

Preparing for battle

Spinning

Discussing medieval fashion

Weaving and manuscript illumination

Fighting on the Quad

Little Jedis